Still Waiting
by Liebling
Summary: ‘I’ve always hated Februarys,’she whispers to the forest, ‘And I've always hated him. Except for now. And not even really ‘except’ either.’ ((Lucius&Narcissa)) Last moments. Unexplained.


_'A kind of glamour was spread over them and the scene and they were conscious of the glamour and made happy by it. They turned to each other, laughing excitedly, talking, not listening. The air was bright.'_

_~ Lord of the Flies_

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_'You go left, I'll go right.'_  He says sternly as he points in both directions, his pose courageous and ready.

_'No, no, we mustn't split up!'_  She says, very near terrified.

_'Just go...I'll come after you...I'll come for you I swear I will.'_

_'No!'_  

Never giving in.

_'Go!'_

Now.

The rush of scattering the moon hanging above them, her hair tangled around his finger.  The sudden glances.  

_'...I shall follow you till my dying day.'_

_'That isn't what marriage is.'_

_'Yes,'_ she whispers, _'yes it is!  I shant go!  I won't go!  We have a family and we're alive and we're good people and we...we deserve to live, Malfoy.'_  She spat bitterly upon a stone.  _'We deserve it...you deserve it...'_

_'Narcissa,'_ he addresses her coolly, effortlessly, _'don't try being noble, darling.  Just go.'_  It's the hushed sort of a whisper--last words--perhaps noble, if there ever was such a thing.

_'I won't leave without you.'_

Shattering silence as he shoves her--perhaps not so affectionately towards the left, back the way they came.  She stumbles and almost trips but he steadies her, turns her around and tightly grasps her shoulders.

_'Go back to the Manor,'_ he says savagely_, 'bolt the bloody doors.  Watch your back.  Don't die on me, Narcissa.  Not now...not bloody now.'_

_'And you'll go get help?'_  She yells in his face, her voice hoarse.  

_'No need for help.'_

She glares at him, a childish glare of one who is fed up and not quite sure why.  _'You're a bloody swine!'_  She yells. _'And I love you...and not **now**...'_

_'There's no time!'_  He yells, exasperated.  _'I've got to go on...'_ he points very vaguely off in the distance in the direction of a purpled sky, showered in orange fireworks.

She grabs the collar of his pearl-coloured shirt and says, her voice deathly cold: _'We have a son, may I remind you?  We have a son and he needs you.  **Christ**, Malfoy, **I **even need you sometimes.'_

_'Sometimes,'_ he adds in a thinking manner, almost sarcastic.  He smirks in her general direction and takes off his ebony silk cloak.  _'Take it,'_ he says, _'it's like ice out here.'_

_'I'll be fine.'_

Her voice is solid, so very solid.  He groans, partly in amusement at her obstinate behavior and part of the irony.  Part of because he's missing out on the fight of a lifetime and is looking forward to scarlet blood running down crisp white shirts.

It's his time.

_'You're a liar.'_

She smiles, almost coyly and her chapped lips meet his quickly.  He squeezes her hand tightly, tips his hat and she bites her tongue.

He slips 'way towards the distance, and she sees him farther away.  She weeps, but not for him.  He is on top of a hill and brandishing his willow wand.  

With a sudden gesture he holds a fist up in the air, much like a savage and yells down at her: 

_'Leave, leave now and never come back to this place!  Never come looking!'_

She looks up at him in the hazy mist and covers her eyes so as to hide the tears.  _'But I will always love you, Malfoy!'_

_'And I, you.'_

He nods, and he is off.

She stays in the forest, slightly longer than is normal.  Her soul is left here, they always say.  Left with the dust and the rubbish, the ripped silk, old pieces of parchment and inky quills.  Her soul is left here for all of eternity.

Picking her way through the forest, her husband's cloak around her bare shoulders she remembers many things one typically remembers.  The ghost-like tears drop from her royal blue eyes and there is quiet in the forest.   She rustles among the bushes her expensive shoes--ebony with yellow daisies on the toes--becoming encrusted with dirt and stray leaves.  

We don't know what her husband is up to--no one ever knows.  

He was not a great man.  He was not a particularly handsome man.  But he was her husband and he was her love and together--together they were very near perfect.

_'I've always hated Februarys,'_ she whispers to the forest,  _'And I've always hated him.  Except for now.  And not even really 'except' either.'_

Except for now.  

Her soul is left here, they always say.

**_And forever it shall remain.  Rotting.  Dying.  Gasping.  Wanting._**

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**_Waiting.  Still waiting._**

*


End file.
